Issue 2 wasn’t as strong as the first, but still great and totally unique from any other Marvel comic out there today. Highlights include the introduction by Nick Bertozzi, Tony Millionaire’s Iron Man versus meat and Dwight D. Eisenhower, R. Kikuo Johnson’s Puppet Master/Alicia Masters yarn, Max Cannon’s take on the Fantastic Four origin and Peter Bagge’s continuing Incorrigible Hulk story which featuring so many amazing quotes it’d be cruel to ruin them all. I’ll leave you with these Hulk gems: “Slutty Girl talk too much. Make Hulk head hurt.”, “We Go to Denny’s Now?” and “Aspirin hurt Hulk’s tummy…”. Gold.

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GRADE: A-

At first I was very worried about how Daredevil would fare after Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark left, seeing as their run wowed me monthly and was a key factor in my grand return to reading comic books. Luckily, Marvel released the faux prelude “Dark Reign: The List – Daredevil #1″ a few weeks back which eased my fears and succeeded in getting me excited to boot. So really all Daredevil #501 had to prove was that lightning could strike twice and that the artwork was a worthy follow up to Lark’s brilliant pencils.

Andy Diggle does succeed in his weather skills, as the story progresses very naturally from what came before. He handles Daredevil’s leading of the Hand in unique and unexpected ways, all with great results. De La Torre’s art is very awesome, and thanks to Matt Hollingsworth colours, feels like a beat wasn’t missed after #500.

This one is tough to talk about without giving too much away, so you should know the status quo is dealing with the events of the past and Daredevil is embracing his newfound leadership. Seriously, it is ON mother fuckers. Watch out!

GRADE: A-

The theme this week seems to be follow up runs that fail at keeping the momentum of what came before. Batman and Robin is no exception: Grant Morrison’s Batman comics have the awful luck of succeeding on the merits of the artist. While Frank Quietly, Andy Kubert and J.H. Williams III have helped him tell some of the best Batman stories in years, Tony Daniel and now Philip Tan have ruined perfectly serviceable tales. It’s hard to care about this Red Hood arc when looking at Tan’s muddled pages.

The story itself continues to let the new Batman and Robin shine and have such vivid personalities while they try to catch the Red Hood and his new partner “Scarlet” and stop them from their evil deeds.

It’s a shame, because Morrison is clearly still on a roll from the exciting and original arc that preceeded this one, but again, the artwork really bogs it down. Quietly doesn’t return for awhile, but at least the upcoming stable of artists know what they’re doing. I look forward to the return of quality, but until then I’ve got one more issue of Tan to slave through.

GRADE: C

The “List” one shots that have spun out of the Dark Reign storyline have all been really great so far. Some of them reminded us of the strengths writers have with their characters (Bendis’ Avengers and Fraction’s X-Men) and others have been fine introductions to a writer’s upcoming run and direction (Diggle’s Daredevil). This falls between the two, as Jonathan Hickman has made the Secret Warriors his own in that book already, but this works as a great stepping stone to what’s he’s doing with them.

This is definitely the weakest of the List books so far, but is still a great comic. Hickman has been a wonderful find for me and he continues to shine here, but this also served as a re-visit to Ed McGuinness for me. I was a huge fan of his in the early 00′s but then I dropped out of comics and by the time I got back, he was doing Hulk with (ugh) Jeph Loeb. So I had to watch from afar as he was (and still is it seems) being misused and under-utilized throughout the years.

McGuinness’ Nick Fury is real sharp and he draws us a fine spy story as Fury comes face to face with Norman Osborn, and they get to compare lists (Fury even gets to accomplish one of his objectives by the end of the tale). Hickman sends off a few twists and by the end it feels like the story is actually going somewhere.

In the back of the comic is a reprinted tale from the Steranko days of yore. It looks great.

I recommend the “List” one shots in general, and this falls under that. Otherwise, I would say get this if you’re a Secret Warriors/Nick Fury/Hickman and/or McGuinness fan.

GRADE: B-

I haven’t really found myself as impressed with Astonishing X-Men as I was during the seminal Joss Whedon/John Cassaday run, but I’ve stuck around hoping that the concept of a well done Warren Ellis X-Men comic can happen. So far, no luck with “Ghost Boxes” being chronically late and Simone Bianchi’s art fell very short when it came down to carrying the whole thing.

So here we are with issue 31, a new story arc with a new artist in Phil Jimenez and a fresh shot at that great Ellis promise I mentioned earlier. Does it deliever? Not exactly, it still feels phoned in and directionless, but at least this time around it’s a fuck of a lot nicer to look at. The premise here is that Abigail Brand, director of S.W.O.R.D. and team encounter the Brood in space, run away and the X-Men get to intercept Brand’s crashing ship. It’s exciting stuff and well written in that regard, but it’s fairly predictable and in the end it doesn’t feel like we fucking went anywhere. When the issue does reach it’s semi-interesting conclusion, it seems to come completely out of left field and makes the rest of the book feel like a waste of time and (wait for it) money.

Bravo to the team, Jimenez for a job very well done and to Ellis for collecting a pay check. Hats off to you!

GRADE: C-

The first issue of “Sweet Tooth” was a total bummer because I had such high expectations from Jeff Lemire from his high caliber work on the Essex County trilogy and the comic just did not deliver. It’s not that it was even a terrible book, but I got the feeling that because Lemire is so used to working in graphic novel form that he missed the point of what works in a single issue story. If it hadn’t been a dollar, I would’ve felt pretty ripped off.

So here we are, issue 2. I decided to give Lemire the benefit of the doubt to see where the story was headed this time around and man I’m glad I did. You’ll find a lot of the charm that was criminally subtle the first time around amped up greatly here. The story is actually moving, the characters are given depth and at the same time, the artwork continues to shine, thanks in large part to the fine colours of Jose Villarrubia.

Gus and Jepperd (the two fellas you see to left on the cover there, in that order) formally meet and hit to road to find The Preserve, a safe haven for children who are human/animal crossbreeds and can survive the mysterious “Affliction” that has plagued the rest of the world. What happens along the way is full of genuine shocks and gasps and has me feeling better about a third go-round.

So yes, Sweet Tooth #2 gives us what the first issue did not, and is a great place to move ahead from. Looking forward to seeing where all of this is going, and how we’re going to get there. Go team!

GRADE: B

Shame on every single person who was involved with this project, short of Ahearne and Immonen who had to pinch hit a total turd (sorry guys, though Immonen killed it the same day on the newest issue of New Avengers). I still can’t fathom that Millar couldn’t script his last two issues and that Hitch couldn’t complete his last work, leaving just layouts for the previous issue and a shit cover for this one. But whatever, pretending that the creative team completely didn’t abandon this project (it’s hard!) still leaves this run ending in a whimper and not the bang it had begun with.

I’ve seen a lot of flack for the Millar/Hitch run and I get it, but the Fantastic Four is exciting and special to me and seeing it sound & look good felt like a good way to spend 3 bucks per month. While it wasn’t the most memorable of runs, it’s was pretty solid fun and tried a couple of new things, most of which are undone in this very issue. Needless to say, I was a fan, and it would’ve taken a lot for me to scoff at those guys… which brings us here.

Okay: Dr. Doom’s master sounded like a great idea, but he is defeated entirely too easy/boringly and while it seems like he was brought in only to reestablish Doom as the ultimate bad ass mother fucker, it failed. Also, the Thing had a great girlfriend that was introduced early in the run by the name of Debbie, and they were going to get married and everything. In the end? It’s a total cop out. I don’t want to spoil it, but you’re best not getting attached to any of these characters.

In fact, that’s how I’d sum up this run: don’t bother, you’ll only get excited and completely ripped off. It’s not worth the heartache. The new team, however, looks to have their shit together and is looking to go big. Let’s do it, and wash the bad fucking taste that Fantastic Four 568-569 left in my mouth. Ick.

GRADE: F

Here it is, the red hot team from Green Lantern: Rebirth, one of the hugest stories of this decade… that I never read. I couldn’t really care much about GL, but I’ll always have a soft spot for the Flash, a character who’s monthly I collected vigorously (it’s one of the largest collections I own) though in retrospect I don’t remember flat out loving the stories. For some reason, Flash seemed kinda realistic for me, a little more so than Batman. This mother fucker could run really fast, and I knew people who were fast, so it seemed like a logical progression. Plus, red and yellow are great colours.

So, as you may have figured out by my age of 24, I’m a Wally West man. I’ve only known Wally and only care to know Wally. People who feel this way will probably not enjoy this comic. Reading Barry Allen’s demise in “Crisis On Infinite Earths” was breathtaking and really made him a legend in my eyes. Bringing him back, however, just makes him yet another superhero not worth getting invested in. He can beat death, so what can’t he beat? For a character who’s main point is that he can away from things or get to something quickly, you need to have that fear instilled. The Flash HAS to be a guy who could logically be taken down.

So unless they kill off Barry by the end of this series, I can’t see myself getting into it. The murder mystery at the beginning was wonderfully done, but the rest really didn’t move. It’s like awkwardly watching some uncle you never knew was still around come into your life and tell you that he was and still might be a big deal as the uncle whom you’ve grown up with is forced to take a back seat. Or something.

But holy shit, while I can’t get into the guy in the suit, I love the words being spoken. Geoff Johns is (as we all know) one of the greatest writers of comics and what he’s been doing with DC deserves multiple medals. He’s made so many titles readable. And Ethan Van Sciver has really improved since I last saw his work. I can see why he’s so hyped.

There you have it: capable people working with a guy I just never knew enough about to love. I’ll stick with this for awhile out of curiosity’s sake, but all in all I can’t give a great reason why you should buy this.

GRADE: C+

I saw this on the stands when it first came out, but decided to skip it in order to save money and room for comics I was already head over heels for. Now, after reading the trade I can say I regret nothing, as this story can only work in a one sitting reading: waiting for it to come out would’ve made me lose interest in an otherwise interesting plot.

We meet Toby and nearly never take our eyes off of him as his world starts to slowly get visitors from his beloved Marvel Comics universe. There was some truly haunting images that stand out in my mind still: be it a quick glimpse of the Red Skull or when our protagonist meets the Incredible Hulk in the woods.

All of that, of course, is thanks to this story’s real hero: Tommy Lee Edwards. His artwork is beyond flawless here as he inks and colours himself all throughout. 1985 works best when it promotes Edwards’ visual storytelling skills and less with what’s going on. Things really don’t kick into gear until the 6th and final issue and even that wraps up just a bit too neatly and timely. I like Millar as much as the next guy, but it seems lately that he has these enormous ideas that he gets tired of almost immediately and then just makes up an ending just to be done with it.

In the end, Marvel 1985 IS worth reading, but not buying. Check your local library or your friend’s bookshelf for this one, just don’t waste your money.

GRADE: B-